Candy Girls: Godiva European Dessert Truffles

With fall upon us and turkey day fast approaching, I've started to think of some of my favorite, festive holiday treats. Candy canes? Sure. Pumpkin pie? Love it. Pecan pie? Yum. But none of them belong on the Candy Girls blog. Luckily, I found out that Godiva Chocolatier makes truffle versions of all those great holiday treats, and also has a new, limited edition line of European Dessert Truffles meant to mimic the flavors of, well, popular European desserts.

I found a box that contained all six European truffles, and then Liz and I did a blind tasting to determine how easily identifiable the flavors were. Click through the jump to read about our experiences and see how successful Godiva's replications are.

Mystery Truffle #1

We decided to start with a white chocolate-covered truffle that’s drizzled with a yellow swirl, figuring it might have a lemon flavor. Sure enough, we were right.

Liz: Wow, I’m impressed by the tartness of the lemon. And it’s nice that the truffle is actually dipped in dark chocolate and white chocolate. It’s a nice flavor combo.

Aubrey: It reminds me of a lemon curd inside there. The texture seems strange for a truffle filling, kind of gooey, but the flavor is nice.

Verdict: The lemon flavor was well received and we were able to say this pretty accurately recreates Lemon Chiffon, which is the dessert Godiva was going for here.

Mystery Truffle #2

Here’s where things get tricky. We decided to go for a milk chocolate truffle speckled with what we originally thought were nuts. Upon further reflection, we realized it was a sprinkling of brown sugar.

Liz: Is it a hazelnut flavor?

Aubrey: I taste a sort of caramelly, cinnamon spice in the filling.

Liz: I really can’t even start to guess what this is.

Aubrey: It is pretty good, though. Nice flavor balance.

Verdict: We never would have pegged this as a Caramalized Apple Tart, but we did at least pick up on the caramel flavors. Good as a truffle, but a failure at replicating the flavors it was aiming for.

Mystery Truffle #3

Next we went for a dark chocolate truffle coated with specks of what seemed to be even darker chocolate nibs.

Liz: It tastes like paper. What is that flavor? It just tastes like the cardboard box it came in.

Aubrey: Is it just chocolate? It’s not very good chocolate, anyway.

Liz: I think I might be getting a slight cherry undertone from the filing.

Aubrey: What is this? I don’t taste the cherry. Very mysterious, indeed.

Verdict: Besides not being big fans of this one, we really didn’t see how anyone would ever guess that this was a Black Forest Torte.

Mystery Truffle #4

After being so disappointed with the Black Forest Torte truffle, we thought we’d try the other dark truffle offering. This one had a swirl of chocolate on top.

Aubrey: Yum. This is much better. The filling is a lot like an airy, rich mousse.

Liz: This is actually what I don’t like about these kinds of chocolates. It tastes like I’m eating chocolate-flavored butter.

Aubrey: I can’t possibly see what would be wrong with that! The buttery richness is what makes this so good.

Verdict: While we were divided on this one, it was a fairly successful recreation of a Chocolate Soufflé.

Mystery Truffle #5

Next we tried a white chocolate truffle with stripes of milk chocolate across the top.

Liz: Oh, look, the inside is divided and there are two separate fillings inside.

Aubrey: Wow, what do you suppose the flavors are? From looking at it, I’d guess peanut butter on one side and chocolate on the other, but that isn’t a very European flavor combination.

Liz: It doesn’t really taste like anything to me. It’s like all the flavors cancel each other out.

Aubrey: I’m getting a little bit of a crème brulee taste – like caramelized sugar. Although the fact that the truffle was dipped first into dark chocolate and then into the white chocolate is making the flavors kind of busy. Usually, crème brulee is delicious because it’s so simple.

Liz: It just tastes like sweet to me. It’s okay, I guess.

Verdict: Success! It actually was Crème Brulee, although the overabundance of flavors muddies your ability to decipher that.

Mystery Truffle #6

Finally, we tried a milk chocolate-covered truffle that had what we thought might be marzipan in the middle.

Liz: This tastes a little stale to me, sort of like paper again.

Aubrey: I’m getting an overwhelming nutmeg flavor, like maybe eggnog? Is eggnog a European dessert?

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Liz: I guess I taste the eggnog in the filling, but the chocolate cancels it out. I don’t know what to think.

Verdict: Apparently this one is supposed to be Bananas Foster, but don’t even get us started on that. Not only is Bananas Foster clearly NOT a European dessert (it was invented in New Orleans and continues to be associated with that city), it also never, ever has milk chocolate in it. Maybe this would have been better if it had been a white chocolate truffle. Oh, and if there had been any hint of banana flavor, and it was for the American Dessert Truffles line. Sheesh!

Conclusions: While we couldn’t really recommend anyone go out and buy these truffles, you might want to stop by the Cherry Creek Mall Godiva shop this weekend, which will be giving away free European Dessert truffles all weekend long.